At first, I was getting one long bleep coming from the mobo during post, and the PC was not useable. There was not even any output from the graphics, i.e. no screen to look at. Eventually, for whatever reason (i honestly have no idea), the PC began to sort of work slowly after restarting it again and again.

At the moment, i would say the pc works as normal apart from the sound.

Have you checked in the BIOS to see if onboard sound is disabled? It should be as it can cause conflicts with any soundcards installed.

oh yes, another observation. When i try to open creative console launcher, a message appears that says "There are no supported audio devices available."

I used to get this all the time with my X-Fi whenever I removed it and reseated it. I just had to re-install the drivers over and over until it was finally detected, sometimes it took 1 time, sometimes 7 or 8

I'd recommend reseating the card one more time and then try reinstalling the drivers again.